Center offers fellowships for Shaker research

By Erika Mantz, Media Relations

UNH’s Center for New England Culture has established a new fellowship program for research at UNH and Canterbury Shaker Village on the history and culture of the Shakers in New Hampshire.

The Elder Henry C. Blinn Research Fellowship Program is sponsored and funded by the center, the UNH Library’s Milne Special Collections, and Canterbury Shaker Village. It supports research by academics, museum and library professionals, independent scholars and doctoral candidates in the collections of Canterbury Shaker Village and in The Shaker Collection in the university library’s Milne Special Collections. Blinn did many things in the Canterbury community, including teaching at the school, making furniture and beekeeping. He died in 1905.

“This fellowship is an exciting initiative designed to foster collaboration among the sponsors, and it is one of several initiatives undertaken by the Center for the Humanities at UNH to enhance understanding about the region’s distinctive culture,” says David Watters, director of the Center for New England Culture.

A senior fellowship of $1,000 a month for up to three months and a junior fellowship of $500 a month for up to three months will be offered. Fellows will make two presentations as part of the fellowship, one at Canterbury Shaker Village and another as part of the Center for New England Culture’s Heritage New Hampshire Lecture Series.

For more information or to request an application contact David Watters at (603) 862-0353 or david.watters@unh.edu.